- Reason 2: The article that
appeared in issue 09 of Airmighty "The Mystery Of The 'Colonial' Beetle ',
written by Brian Screaton and dedicated to the raid Belgium - Belgian Congo and
return made in 1950 by Pierre D'Ieteren, importer of VW in Belgium;

- Reason 3: about this adventure,
and about the one in some way related of the German War Graves Commission in
1951, I would have spoken sooner or later, as indeed are in many respects
extraordinary. By the way, the photo in Figure 1 was the background of my
desktop for at least one year;

- Reason 4: the assumptions
contained in the article are very interesting, and deserve to be discussed.

For those unfamiliar with the story
here is a brief summary:

Between October 1950 and January
1951, the VW importer for Belgium organized a raid of 26.000 kilometers that took
him in the heart of Black Africa, after a trip through half of Europe and the
Sahara, using two beetles and a bus. The trip, very
adventurous indeed, was successfully completed and , when he was back to
Europe, Pierre was received with all the honors in Wolfsburg from Nordhof in
person. The promotional purpose of the operation is fairly clear: at the 1950 Frankfurt
auto show VW organized a corner displaying the
vehicles, which were also exhibited in many German and Belgian dealers. The
adventure was the subject of D’ Ieteren’s book "Images du souvenir", while, thanks
to VW, large coverage of the event was provided by the magazine Gute Fahrt (articles
in the January 1951, July 1951 and August 1951 issues). End of story? Not a
chance.

Brian noted the
striking resemblance between the cars used by D'Iereten (and of which after a
short period glory disappeared), and those provided by VW to the German
Commission of the War Graves to carry out a mission in Africa, on which Gute
Fahrt dedicated an article in August 1952. Also in this case the vehicles used
were two beetles and one bus. End of story? For goodness sake, the best
is now.

The beetles, although they were
declared to be perfectly standard, actually had some interesting
particularities, including wider track, sunroof, a strange rear pop-out windows,
high stance thanks to the installation of hub reduction boxes as in the bus, front
axle strengthened.

The detail that most 'stimulates’
the curiosity of the author of the article is the presence of the air intake
vent on the front side panels: the oddity is that these vents would appear not
before January 1951! Based on these information and other secondary details, the
author suggest an interesting: the cars used by D'Ieteren could have been prototypes
of a mysterious "colonial" version of the beetle, prepared in secret
by VW and then "for reasons unknown, apparently never appeared on the
market”, or more 'dramatically “strangled at birth”. The conclusion of the
reconstruction is clear : it was a lost opportunity for VW to increase sales in
countries where this kind of vehicles were appreciated, and these cars are
surrounded by an aura of mystery.

At this point, we have to ask
ourself few questions to which the article does not answer:

1. Is the hypothesis of the
existence of prototypes of the 'colonial'
Beetle convincing?

2. The journey of D'Ieteren was
just the adventure of a businnes man in
search of advertising or there was something else?

3. Why not only the cars were
lost, but also their memory, considering that there is no mention to them with
the exception of the chronicles of the
time?

These and other
questions will try to give my answers.

For the moment, thanks
to Brian Screaton and Airmighty for having brougth this story to light after so
much time.

The Standard is the poor brother of the Beetle that we all know, the Export model.Its history and evolution had developed independently and discreetly, leaving little trace in the literature in the past.Also the literature of today offers very few information on it, and when it does is often superficial, incomplete, if not simply wrong.

But Standard is not only the poor variant of the beetle, it is also an attitude, a way of seeing things, paying attention to everything, by its nature, goes unnoticed because it is not trendy, not glamor, and is not cause of admiration, emulation, desire.